Just Go Grind #297: Jon Dahl, Co-Founder and CEO of Mux, a Video Platform for Developers, on The Changing Landscape of the Video Industry and Unexpectedly Becoming a Hyper Growth Startup
Jon Dahl is the Co-Founder and CEO at Mux, where he builds software to help online video get better. Before that, he was Co-Founder of Zencoder, and then VP of Technology at Brightcove, two pioneering companies in the world of online video. Mux is building the future of online video infrastructure. They started off by building Mux Data, a best-in-class performance analytics tool that’s trusted by developers at companies like Vimeo, Robinhood, CBS Interactive, Discovery, PBS, and TED. Billions of monitored streams later, they launched Mux Video, a simple API for video hosting, encoding, and streaming. Take any video file or live stream and make it play beautifully at scale on any device, powered by magical-feeling features like automatic thumbnails, animated GIFs, and data-driven encoding decisions.
Some of the Topics Covered by Jon Dahl in this Episode
- What Mux is
- How Jon got interested in video
- Jon's experience building his previous startup, Zencoder
- How Zencoder got acquired and how they made the decision to sell
- Leaving Brightcove and why Jon started Mux
- The video industry landscape and building Mux
- Early consumer research and customer feedback
- Why they started with data analytics and then added the video streaming layer
- How they approached early customer acquisition and growth
- Growing and strengthening their reputation and expanding sales
- How the COVID-19 pandemic led to unexpected accelerated growth
- Video as a part of the creator economy
- How they scaled up the team during COVID and accidentally becoming a hyper growth startup
- Recruiting as a function of growth and in-house versus external recruiters
- Mux's hiring process
- Fundraising for Mux and why they ended up raising more than they originally planned
- How the video industry has changed, where it's going, and the role Mux hopes to play
- What's next for Mux and opportunities in the landscape of the video industry
- What fuels Jon today
- What keeps Jon sane as a founder
- The importance of finding meaning outside of your startup and work
- Jon's advice for early stage founders
- The importance of scaling yourself and having a growth mindset
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